First Activation

Jack grabbed my arm. “You’re wasting your time, Harry. Bernie and Linda are right, we should leave them here.”

They had been right, but I had one more card to play. “I’ve got a deal for you, if you are prepared to listen and speak honestly.”

“A deal? What deal?” He sat up while rubbing his fingers.

“I’ll give you Maureen if you tell us the truth about why you want to kill her. What do you say?”

“No way, Harry,” Bernie shouted, “I cannot allow you to do this. Let’s just get the hell—”

“Give her to me and I’ll tell you afterwards,” the man replied.

We all stood in silence for a moment and stared at him. I think Bernie and Linda were still shocked, but I knew Jack and I were curious about what he had to say.

“Think about the security guard at the bottom of the slide. I’m not saying these people will all act in the same way, but if we give him Maureen first, he might try and kill himself straight after,” Jack said.

“No deal,” I replied to the man. “You either tell us, or we leave you and Maureen to starve to death in here.”

I thought this would put him at his breaking point.

“I am not a killer. Let me out, please.”

“I’m going to the other room. This is a waste of time,” Linda said, and Bernie followed her out.

Jack put his hand on my shoulder. “It was a good try. We nearly had him. Let’s go.”

He had been an inch from cracking and I felt suddenly angry at this man’s death wish.

“Fuck you,” I said, and headed for the door.

I stopped immediately after an anguished cry came from the cell.

“Wait!”

We both turned and walked back to the bars.

“Do you promise to give me that old woman if I tell you everything?”

He was now sweating and looked desperate. Bernie and Linda joined us back in the room.

“Yes, I promise,” I said.

“Harry, you can’t,” Linda gasped.

“Linda, if you or Bernie don’t want to be part of it, leave the room. This is happening whether you like it or not.”

They both stayed, standing silently behind me. I was starting to surprise myself, but the game of life had changed. I knew that even one sign of weakness could make him clam up again.

“You’re not lying, are you? You will give her to me?”

”Look, that crazy old bat tried to kill us. We handcuffed her, taped her up, and I’ve been dragging her around by her hair. She means nothing to us. If you don’t believe us, then we’ll turn around and walk out now. Makes no difference to me. Tell us or that’s it,” Jack replied.

The man dropped his head, ran his fingers through his hair, then looked straight at me. “I’ve got to kill myself.”

“Go on,” I said.

“I’ve got to kill myself as soon as possible.”

He stopped and looked up at me in expectation.

“Come on, there’s more to it than that. Spit it out. You’ve got twenty seconds.”

It didn’t make sense. If the simple goal was suicide, then nothing was stopping him.

“Oh, what have I got to lose?” He continued in a slow, cold voice. “I want to kill myself. The final unstoppable goal is to kill myself. But I cannot kill myself until I kill another person.” He rubbed his face with both hands, “…kill one, kill yourself, kill one, kill yourself… I must use whatever means necessary to do this, and I have to do it as soon as possible.”

A stunned silence followed. I was trying to register what I had just heard.

“You don’t have any other option?” Jack asked.

“There is no other option. This is the only way. Now, please, give me the old woman.”

“I believe him. I mean, it fits exactly with what we have already seen. Right?” Bernie said.

“Can you tell us anything else? How long have you wanted to do this?” I asked.

“No. I’ve been honest with you. My objective is simple.”

I turned and walked past Jack, Bernie, and Linda, into the office area. The man shouted for us to come back and honour our promises, but Jack locked the door. Muffled sounds of screaming and the rattling of the cell door continued for a couple of minutes, then stopped abruptly.

We sat down on the floor and tried to make sense of what had just happened.

“Harry, you could have told us you had no intention of sacrificing Maureen,” Linda said.

“The whole act with him had to look genuine or he would realise that we were bluffing. These people may be focussed on killing, but they’re not completely stupid. Both of them have tried to manipulate us in order to kill.”

“You still should have told us. We would have been convincing. Next time, don’t scare us like that,” Bernie replied.

“There won’t be a next time. We know that Maureen and that guy in the cell wanted to kill someone. The security guard killed the steward, then himself. There’s a pattern.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You’ve seen it yourself, Bernie. Since we landed, everyone we have met has tried to kill. No matter how convincing they have sounded, they can’t be trusted. So yes, I would sacrifice one of them if it meant our safety.”

“We need to plan how to handle these situations in the future,” Jack said, backing me up. “People could be armed, strong, or sneak up on us, giving us only seconds to respond. I think we should go for a zero tolerance approach.”